Chris Cornell Would Have Been 53 Today But His Charitable Legacy Lives on

The music world lost a legend with the sudden and tragic death of Chris Cornell on May 18, 2017.

In memory of Cornell’s 53rd birthday, let’s look back at a part of his legacy that lives on. The iconic frontman of Soundgarden and Audioslave not only gave the world incredible music but also became highly involved in the philanthropic community.

Cornell and his wife, Vicky, started the Chris & Vicky Cornell Foundation in 2012 with the mission of protecting the most vulnerable children. While most of their philanthropic work to date has been private and anonymous, the couple formed the organization based on their personal experience working in the child protection space.

Before he passed, Cornell wrote and recorded a soundtrack titled The Promise. The film of the same name sheds light on the Armenian genocide that occurred in the early 1900s and stars Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac.

The singer said of the film then: “This movie’s a great opportunity to tell a story that needs to be told, to help engage the healing of something that happened at a specific time and place, but it also reminds us that it’s happening now and reminds us what to look for.”

Cornell decided to donate all the proceeds from the song to the International Rescue Committee, which responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people survive as well as rebuild their lives.

His charitable donation and passion for the project came from a special place. He said, “I married into a Greek family, and my wife’s grandparents were affected by the same genocide at the same time. … So I saw the nearness to it.”

After his tragic passing, many of Chris’s celebrity friends carried on his legacy by making the “Keep the Promise” video.

Finally, in what would turn out to be one of his last charitable acts, a month before his death, Cornell and his family traveled to Athens to visit a refugee camp. His family and representatives of the International Rescue Committee visited the Eleonas camp, which houses mostly Afghan refugees.

In other entertainment news, Chris Cornell’s 12-year-old daughter wrote a sweet note to her dad: